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INSTRUCTOR: This recipe is about brioche, this beautiful airy
crumb, sweet rich bread that we associate with the French.
What differentiates a brioche from a regular bread
is the fact that we have eggs inside.
We also have butter in it, which makes it closer to pastries.
It was a bread that people would look up to as a luxury.
This was a bread that was only for the elite.
I love brioche when it's cut super thick and toasted.
The butter in the middle will have
melted, so that it's really wonderful
and it doesn't call for anything else.
When I was an apprentice, my father
had me work every day on a batch of brioche
to have me understand how delicate this dough needs
to be handled.
So making brioche is a difficult recipe.
I'm using a standalone mixer, because if you overwork it,
then the brioche dough won't rise as much.
So using a standalone mixer avoids
putting too much force into it.
So in this recipe, I'm going to use active dry yeast, flour,
sugar, salt, eggs, and butter.
We're going to start by activating the dry yeast
with a little bit of water.
So I'm just going to mix it with a fork in a bowl.
And after a couple of minutes, you'll
start seeing these little bubbles.
And if you froth it with your fork,
it looks a little bit like egg whites
when you just start mixing them.
While my active dry yeast is bubbling up,
I'm going to butter my molds in this recipe,
but I will be making a batch that's big enough
to have two loaves of brioche.
I'm buttering the bowls, because once I've cut the dough in two,
I can let it rest there without it
sticking too much to the sides.
In my mixer, I'm going to put the flour, sugar,
the salt, and the yeast.
So we're going to start with the paddle attachment,
and we're just going to bring these ingredients together
before we add the eggs.
Here, we really want to work on a slow speed
because we don't want to be rough or too forceful,
the same way we would with our hands
if we were hand-kneading the dough.
Once it's come together, you're absolutely
fine using the spatula to make sure that all of the elements
have been mixed in properly.
And it's also a good way of checking
if the consistency is regular.
At this point, add the eggs.
Here, we want all the elements to mix well
before we change attachment and add in the butter.
So the dough has come together.
You can see a little bit of flour.
You can see a little bit of eggs.
It seems to be more or less homogeneous.
The other indication was my standalone mixer
seems to be having a little bit of a harder time
to work the dough together.
At that point, you know the dough has come together
and ready to greet the butter.
So at this point, you change attachments.
When you're using the paddle, what you're doing
is really bringing the ingredients together,
like you would with your hands working it.
The hook is going to have more of a shaping effect
on the dough.
I like to use raw milk butter from France.
But whatever butter you use, it should be unsalted
and with high fat content.
You want it to be at room temperature.
Not so smooth and hot that the fat and the water content
have separated, but not so cold that the hook is going to have
a hard time incorporating it.
If you're going to use salted butter in this recipe,
make sure that you halve the salt content of the recipe.
So I'm going to add this butter in three or four strokes.
What I'm looking for is the butter
to incorporate into the dough, to disappear in the dough.
It hasn't melted, it's just blending in with the dough.
Now, as you incorporate it, you'll
see the dough will come in larger lumps.
That's fine.
If you feel that the butter is having
a little bit of a hard time blending in,
you can use the spatula just to bring it together.
Also, because in standalone mixers,
there's always a little bit of flour
that tends to stick on the bottom.
So I'm going to carry on putting a little bit of butter.
This is not a recipe you should do on an angry day
because you'll just be too forceful with the dough
and it might ruin the brioche later.
You're trying to find this balance between a low to medium
speed that needs to not be too forceful on the dough
and getting going.
So the ingredients have come together
and the dough is smooth.
It's nice and shiny.
What we're looking for here is just
that there's a sense of unity between the ingredients.
If I touch the dough, although greasy,
it doesn't stick all that much.
Think of it like a strong mattress
that you put your hands on.
It's something that's resistant.
It has matter in it.
So we're going to take this dough, cut it in two,
and leave it to rest in the two bowls we've greased earlier.
Here, I'm going to use a little bit of flour
to turn the dough onto the table.
So I'm using the spatula here, but you
can use a dough scraper.
It's all the same.
This is a good time, if you want to taste the dough,
to see how it tastes.
You'll feel it has the consistency
of as if you were to take a too big chewing gum in your mouth.
It's very full.
It's sweet.
It's very pleasing.
I'm just putting a little bit of flour on my hands
so that it doesn't stick.
But even without doing it, the dough
is not all that sticky, as much as it's just oily, buttery.
I'm going to use a dough scraper here,
but you could really use the spatula.
And I'm just going to turn those into something
that looks a little bit like a ball,
but that's almost more for the decor and to get a sense
and feel of the dough.
In pushing it aside a little bit,
I get a sense of is it homogeneous?
Does it have some body and some weight to it?
Because there's a lot of ingredients in here--
there's eggs, there's sugar, there's butter.
And I'm going to quickly cradle it in here,
cover it up, and let it rest.
Now, I'm pushing it a little bit like you would toss a ball.
Once again, for no other reason than just having
somewhat of a shape and a sense that the ingredients have
come together.
So I let it rest this way.
I have my two bowls that I'm going
to keep in a draft-free space.
And this is really important.
The brioche is a dough that is very sensitive to drafts.
So I cover it up and keep it at a temperature
of around 20 to 25 degrees Celsius for about two hours.
What we're looking here is not so much
the time, as much as a rise.
This loaf should double in size.
If, past two and a half hours, you don't have that rise,
that's fine.
Move on to the next step.
Your dough might be a little denser.
It won't be as airy.
It won't be as fluffy, but that's OK.
You'll do better next time.
It takes practice.
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In this recipe, we have two rises.
In the first rise, the visual cue you're looking for
is the doubling in size.
After two hours, you have this beautiful ball,
which contrasts with the one you've just shaped.
You'll see it's more yellow.
It has more body to it.
You can very delicately touch it with the back of your hands
and feel the resistance, the smooth top.
It almost looks like a little steamed bun.
So once you're at this stage, flour your working surface
ever so lightly.
Here, it's more about removing any resistance,
just making it non-sticky.
Butter your molds.
Butter, because you will have a little bit of the Maillard
reaction, and it's actually really nice for the crust
of the brioche.
You could use some neutral oils, but it will flavor the brioche,
and I think it's a pity to do that because you don't have
that little thin crust that you would get with the butter
melting.
All right.
So when you're kneading, being delicate is really,
really, really key.
Whether you're doing it with a dough scraper, with your hands,
with a spatula, you really want to be delicate.
I'm literally just pouring the dough out on the work surface
here.
And when you keep it in your hands,
you feel that it's very airy.
It's very light.
The texture here is like a sponge
that's filled with water.
And if you pressed it down, you'd
probably squeeze out a lot of water.
Here, there's butter.
There's air pockets.
And you want to keep that environment
because once the air is out, the dough will collapse.
So using the back and the palm of my hand,
I'm just going to shape both dough balls.
I press it down a little bit so that it
becomes the length of my mold.
I tuck in the little sides here just to have a nicer seam.
As I tuck it in, I push in, in and towards the sides
so that yet I can have a little more expansion of the dough.
And this will allow you to not overwork the dough.
If you overwork the dough, what you'll see
is the dough will deflate.
All of the air pockets and bubbles
that have been created here will just disappear and vanish.
If that happens, carry on your baking.
Just know that you might not have
the same expansion in the mold.
Now, when I'm bringing it over, sometimes, it
shows out the air pockets.
Here's a beautiful example of it.
That's a good sign.
But just carry on being very delicate
as you bring it together.
When you're picking up the brioche,
if you take it from the sides, then the center,
which is heavier, will tend to weigh down.
And that's the kind of moment where you can really
impact the dough.
So just try and take it from the sides
as if you were going to roll it once more.
And grab it, starting with the middle,
and delicately expanding the dough out on the sides.
What I like with this loaf is that I can see the air pockets,
so I know that there's a good fermentation going on.
I put it out.
The surface is smooth.
I don't have, like in this one, which
I was a little too forceful on, this little seam,
which is absolutely fine.
By all means, if this happens, these
are details that you perfect over time, habits
that you grow to develop.
In these two instances, the doughs touch the sides.
There's little holes on the side,
but that is not a concern because the dough
will expand for the next hour and a half
to two and a half hours.
And whereas previously we moved the dough, here, if you can,
try and keep it on the working surface,
because the more you manipulate the dough, especially when it's
in the mold, the more you're at risk
of having a loaf that releases the air,
and therefore, it collapses.
When I was an apprentice, this was my most dreaded moment
because I would bake a batch of five of these loaves.
And so I would get to the point where I had shaped them.
They had this beautiful rise.
And I would put them on a tray, put them in the oven,
and they would collapse because I was just
so undelicate in my first days.
Here, the visual cue you're looking for for the rise
is for the dough to reach the top of the mold.
So right now, it's at most about one finger away,
maybe two in the middle.
You're going to look for the top to really caress
the top, and maybe even just a finger above,
and the size to have risen significantly.
So I'll cover it up and let it rest for that hour and a half
to two and a half hours before it's ready to go into the oven.
If, at this point, your dough collapses, if it overrises--
in both cases, bake them.
What will happen is that your brioche will not be
as expansive, won't be as airy.
That's fine.
And I insist on this because the dough won't be bad,
it just won't be as wonderful and as luscious
of an experience.
If your dough doesn't rise enough,
maybe your environment was too cold.
Maybe there was a draft that prevented the dough
from expanding.
To compare the dough with a human being,
it's kind of like if it's drafty, if it's cold,
then you kind of want to shelter on yourself
and wrap up and not move, whereas if it's too hot,
you'll expand, but to the point where you'll be a little too--
the dough will take over too much space.
So if your dough hasn't risen enough, that's OK.
After two and a half hours, bake it.
The other thing you can do if you're in an environment that's
a little too cool is you can use a transparent plastic bag
to cover this up, create a little chamber, which
will be draft-free and increase the temperature,
and create a sort of little fermentation room here.
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When the dough is just about ready,
you're going to heat up the oven so
that it can be warm and ready to greet the loaves.
In this case, I have two loaves that
have risen within the range I'm looking for.
I am about to just put a little bit of an egg wash.
Just break an egg, mix it, and wash the top.
Don't overwash your brioche because that will
create a little bit of a crust.
This is a moment where if you overdo it,
you could deflate the loaf.
So make sure to be as delicate as you can.
The egg wash will create a nice and beautiful top.
Use a pair of scissors.
I use my finger as an anchor, and take it about half
of a finger in width apart, and just cut through.
And I'll demonstrate this again.
The finger that you have on the side of the mold
doesn't serve any other purpose than just
giving you a sense of direction and helping you flow.
If you feel like doing just a slash, that's fine,
but the slashes tend to bring down the dough afterwards,
whereas these small cuts tend to bring the dough up.
If your dough has risen too much,
if it's beyond this point, don't snip it
because it will tend to deflate the dough.
The snippets here help give the dough one last boost,
so that once it's in the oven, it expands and makes
these beautiful ears on the sides of the mold.
So here, I use my finger, and you're
trying to be delicate and fast.
If you're doing it really slowly at first
and your dough becomes a little sticky on the side,
just try and keep a regular movement.
That momentum will help you avoid having the scissors stick
to the dough.
Now, we're going to leave the dough to rest for five minutes.
Here, we're just looking for this last little beginning
of an expansion before it goes into the oven.
At this point, when I'm moving my two molds,
I'm doing it really on the working surface because I don't
want to take the risk that I would deflate the loaf by being
a little too brusque, and therefore, having the air
pockets fall off.
So I'll bake my brioche 35 to 40 minutes.
The visual indications here are a golden color,
this sort of light terracotta, orangeish color.
In fact, your egg yolks might be a good indication
that we're in this range, but with a tad bit of brown.
While you're baking, if you notice
through the window of your oven that your loaf has collapsed,
carry on the bake.
I'm sorry this has happened, but it'll be better next time.
You can turn it into a pain perdu, a French toast.
You can turn it into some croutons
if you don't feel like eating it for your morning toast.
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When I take this out of the oven, it really smells buttery,
and they will be shiny on the outsides
and brown around the peaks.
Think of this as like a mountainous range
that you're observing.
The valleys are matte.
They're slightly rougher.
This one may not look as beautiful and perfect
as the second loaf.
However, in both cases, what's really, really wonderful
is that the dough has expanded.
In fact, if you look at this one,
you'll see all the little fermentation bubbles,
the little air pockets.
This is, again, a really good sign
that it had a nice beautiful rise, and in the oven,
it gave its everything.
I would cool my brioche in the mold for a couple of minutes,
long enough so that you can use your hands,
or if it's still just barely warm, using a cloth.
And then use one hand to delicately turn it over
and push it down.
Here, if we leave it too long in the mold,
it will tend to catch a little bit of the humidity
and create this little hole, this little valley
on the sides.
This, you want to try and avoid by removing the brioche
after just a couple of minutes.
And you want to use the rack so that the bottom parts are
really cooled and dried.
You have to wait long enough for you
to be able to hold these loaves with your hands
without burning, and that's without it being warm.
Even if it's irresistible, even if
the sweet, delicate, buttery, wonderful,
like very gourmet flavors here are irresistible, resist.
It's worth it.
If you're not going to use them right away,
you can cover them with just a cloth
and leave them like this for a couple of days.
The thing with brioche is, because there's so much butter
inside, you tend to have a dough that will really grease up
your cloth, your paper.
But better that you grease up the paper first before you
grease up the cloth.
It will just give you that much more time.
So what I typically do is when I'm done with my brioche,
I will store it in a little paper bag,
and then cover that paper bag with the cloth.
That's really what will carry on preventing it drying too fast.
The good news, though, is that with brioche, you
can afford it to dry out.
If you toast it, it will melt down the butters
and basically revive the loaf.
You can keep brioche for anywhere between five days
to a week, depending on your home environment.
Brioche doesn't like humidity, and that's
another reason why you should use a piece of paper,
because the paper will absorb the extra humidity.
So let's cut through this.
When you cut it at home, I would start through the sides.
And if you do a thin cut of the trimming,
then you can use that slice as a guard
as you progress through the loaf.
Brioche is a delicate dough, even
once it's baked, so make sure that you cut it delicately.
I'm using a serrated knife, which
is rather aggressive for a very fluffy dough.
But if you cut a large slice, then you just
have less chances of squishing the dough.
So a good brioche looks like there's a uniform dough.
You might even see the movements of the kneading you gave it.
It has a base with an expanded top.
And it looks a little bit like a mushroom.
That's a visual cue that I like to have.
It shouldn't look doughy.
The air pockets are well-balanced
throughout the crumb.
This brioche lends itself to both sweet and savory pairings.
So you could use it for a French toast
that's made with tomatoes-- a savory French toast.
When I taste my brioche at home, I like to cut it thick,
especially after a few days.
Toast it, so that it's just the same color on the crust
as it is on the crumb, and it melts the butters inside,
and becomes this really smooth and delicious texture.
But if you're going to eat it fresh,
a little bit of marmalade is really wonderful.
What I like with orange marmalade, or any citrus fruit,
is that it will have a tang, which will really complement
the butteriness of the brioche.
And this is just a tip.
Take it from the crust.
Make your life easier as you bite into it.
Mm.
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Biting through it, it's like biting into a cloud, a cushion.
All of these really wonderful elements-- the eggs,
the butter that come together, and this little crust that's
ever so slightly caramely.